Tedious Ivory Tinkling

Rating: 2/10 (22 April 2005)

Looking past all the things I dislike about this film I find there's an original plot, and one I could take to at that.
However, the film is filled with a number of musical performances that hit all the wrong notes with me. Unless you are heavily into piano music, particularly early jazz, you may find the set musical pieces as tiresome as I did, to the extent that it spoils the entire film for you.
A further problem of the music is that throughout you are to view the central character as some kind of uber-genius of the ivories. If you fail to enjoy the music to the extent that you nod and go "yes, he is a piano God" then much of the fuss and story surrounding him falls apart.
I'm also not sure about Tim Roth. For some reason I like him a great deal in Reservoir Dogs even though a part of me feels his performance is flawed. In this his performance seems pretty woeful. He has a tick where he squeals a bit as he speaks when he's in a bit of emotional turmoil and I find that puts me off him. In this film he is also expected to do a bit of genius-fuelled wistfulness, but - I'm afraid - when he does this, I just find he looks a bit of a fool.
It's got a nice feel of the period, but every time I tried to relax into the film and enjoy it, there was always something irking me.